Guardian Groom. Sandra Marton

      Crista was walking as fast as she could toward the building that housed Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz but it wasn’t easy when the ridiculously high heels on her boots kept slipping on the slick pavement.

      She sighed, thinking how much better she’d feel if she were wearing her own clothes to this meeting. But the meeting was at nine, and she had to be back in the Village to start work by eleven. There wasn’t any choice, except to wear this silly getup under her raincoat.

      The letter from her uncle’s attorney had arrived by registered mail on Saturday.

       Dear Miss Adams,

       Your presence is required at this office Monday morning promptly at nine regarding the provisions of your late uncle’s will.

      It was signed by Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D.

      Crista had frowned. What was this about provisions in Uncle Simon’s will? There wouldn’t be anything in the will that concerned her. Simon had made that clear when she’d moved out of his home.

      “You will not get one penny from me, young woman,” he’d said shrilly, wagging a bony finger in her direction. “I’m going to cut you off without a cent!”

      “I never wanted anything from you, Uncle,” she’d responded—nothing he’d wanted to give her, at any rate.

      So what could the estimable Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D., be talking about? Did some kind of legal mumbo jumbo require him to inform her that Simon had written her out of his will?

      Well, she’d thought as she dialed Blackburn’s office, he could just tell her that over the phone.

      A recorded voice had informed her that the offices were closed until Monday morning at nine.

      Crista had grimaced. She’d just have to wait until then to make the call…

      Maybe it was impulsiveness. Maybe it was stubborn pride and the determination not to be intimidated by anyone, traits that had always infuriated her uncle. But sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening, she’d changed her mind.

      Crista had decided to keep the appointment.

      She’d met Horace Blackburn once when Simon had consulted him about transferring her from one boarding school to another. A prissy man with the same icy bearing as his client, Blackburn’s disapproval of her had been written all over his face.

      Wouldn’t it be wonderful to smile sweetly at him and tell him where to get off after he’d read the words he undoubtedly hoped would bring tears to her eyes?

      The more she’d thought about it, the more she’d looked forward to the chance.

      But reality wasn’t measuring up to the fantasy, Crista thought glumly as she turned down Canal Street. Things had gone wrong from the minute she’d awakened this morning. She’d slept through the first jangling call of her alarm clock, and then the gray cat had managed to get himself stuck behind the refrigerator. By the time she’d finally dashed from the apartment, Crista had been running late.

      The bus had pulled out just as she’d reached the stop, and neither frantic shouting or jumping up and down had slowed it down or brought it back. So she’d caught the crosstown instead, intending to transfer to a downtown bus at Broadway, but somehow she’d miscalculated.

      Now she was walking the last four long blocks in the rain, wondering why on earth she’d ever thought a face-to-face confrontation with Horace Blackburn would be a good idea.

      She hunched deeper into the collar of her raincoat. The wind was picking up now, driving the rain before it. Her hair would be as tangled as a bird’s nest by the time she reached Blackburn’s office, and whatever rain-defeating abilities her thin coat once had were long gone. She didn’t even want to think about what the dampness seeping through it might be doing to her already snug T-shirt.

      Crista sighed as she stepped off the curb. She’d have been better off sticking to Plan A, she thought as she hurried across the intersection. She could have phoned Blackburn this morning and told him, in her best lockjawed, boarding-school accent, that she didn’t give a fig for whatever it was he had to tell her, that he could either make his little speech over the phone or he could—

      “Look out!”

      The warning came too late. Crista’s head came up just as the man barreled into her. Her right foot, already up on the curb, slid out from under her. She gave an outraged cry, windmilled her arms in a desperate attempt to keep her boots from bidding a fast farewell to the pavement, and went stumbling backward into the street just as a truck, horn blaring, came racing into the intersection.

      The man’s arms swept around her. “I’ve got you,” he said, swinging Crista off her feet and onto the pavement as the truck thundered past, drenching them both in a spray of water.

      They stood looking at each other in shocked silence and then Crista let out a long, shaky breath.

      “Ohmygod,” she whispered as she clung to the hard, broad shoulders of her rescuer.

      “Oh my God?” Her rescuer’s voice was deep and harsh and very angry. “Oh my God? Is that all you can say after you almost killed us both?”

      Crista blinked. His face, as harsh and as angry as his voice, was inches from hers; his eyes—some strange combination of blue and brown and green—were cold with fury.

      “Me?” she said. Her head lifted. “Me?” she repeated, her voice shooting up the scale in indignation. “I almost killed us both?” She glared back at him, shoved her drenched hair back from her eyes, and twisted free of his grasp. “You ran into me, remember?”

      “Where are you from, lady? Didn’t anybody tell you that you’re supposed to watch where you’re going in the big city?”

      “I was watching where I was going,” Crista said in her best New York fashion. “You were the one who was tearing along like a linebacker for the Jets.”

      The man’s eyes grew flinty. “Thank you for the apology. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get by.”

      “That makes two of us,” Crista said, her tone as nasty as his.

      She stepped to her right. The man stepped to his left. They glared at each other, then made the same moves in reverse. He shook his head, muttered something, then made a mock-chivalrous sweeping gesture with his arm.

      “Ladies first,” he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

      Crista sniffed. “Try keeping that in mind. It might save another woman from almost getting knocked down.”

      It was, she thought, a fair exit line—but as she started past him, her right ankle buckled. With a cry of alarm, she stumbled—and was caught in the man’s arms again.

      “What now?” he demanded.

      Crista’s brows drew together. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was fine until I put weight on my foot. But when I did, it just—”

      “Hell, I get it.” She gasped as his hands dug into her forearms. “What comes next? An ambulance ride to the nearest emergency room, where you suddenly develop an incurable headache and back pains?”

      “What are you talking about? I never said—”

      “I warn you, you’re wasting your time trying a scam like this on me. I’m an attorney, and—”

      “An attorney!” Crista twisted away from him and slapped her hands on her hips. “Of course,” she said, her lip curling, “I might have known.”

      “Spoils your little scheme, doesn’t it?” Grant smiled tightly. “Trust me, madam. There’s nothing you can try that I haven’t seen before.”

      No, he thought, with a catch of his breath, no, he had not seen a face like hers before.